For our friends, Paul and Kate, here is your wedding present. Read the rest of this entry »

The speakers are finished.  They sound great, thanks to John Krutke. I will note that I deviated from his design, so I have no idea if they sound better or worse than his reference. It’s definitely good enough for me, so I’m not worried. Read the rest of this entry »

Somehow, every subsequent stage of this design takes longer than the one before.  If I use this same design again, I’ll invest in a CNC machine prior to construction.  Constructing the baffles required many steps, each of which required either a special jig and/or hours of routing.  Looking at the steps required to build these things, I think I’m the Rube Goldberg of woodworkers: Read the rest of this entry »

The veneering process has gone really smoothly.  The iron-on method is the easiest I’ve used and the least stressful. You just have to take your time and make sure you’ve heated up everything enough.  I moved the iron very slowly and the cotton shirt prevented any scorching. Read the rest of this entry »

Before using the iron-on method to attach paper backed veneer with Titebond’s wood glue, I emailed Titebond for instructions, and asked about the differences when using this method with Titebond I, II, and III. It turns out, there are significant application differences between their various glues.  Also, there is a disclaimer, as they have not done long-term testing with this this method. Read the rest of this entry »

Like most others, my woodworking shop is incomplete.  I still need a band saw, large planing drum sander to deal with figured wood, biscuit joiner, lathe, and a host of other tools.

In particular, the lack of a way to flatten the curly maple was starting to be a problem.  I gave a friend’s standard planer a shot and there was too much tear-out.   Drum sanders for planing start at $575 or so and go up quickly.  Not wanting to spend that much, I racked my little brain for ways to flatten the wood without one. Read the rest of this entry »

Much progress has been made, but also some lost.  Two steps forward…

The lamination is complete for the curved sides.  As this was the most time intensive phase, I felt like I should celebrate a victory, but have enough experience to know that my enclosure design brought about some awkward situations in the workshop. Read the rest of this entry »

After my previous bad gluing experiences with the curved sides, I decided to go back to the clamping drawing board, if you will, and figure out a better approach.  I decided on using the same 1/8″ plywood with a clamping caul glued to each side so that the cauls would not slip, as they would have if I simply used them without the plywood.  I cut the tops off at an angle so that the band clamps would exert more pressure on the outsides and so the regular clamps would not slip off.    Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve decided to go ahead with using the bendable plywood I purchased, mostly because I couldn’t stand being out $50.  The parts I cut off weren’t too bad, and are going to be covered with 3/8″ of baltic birch, so no imperfections should show through.

Please note, what you see below looks like it was easy.  It was not.  That result was achieved after much cursing at the people who designed the band clamps, cursing in general, and telling all of the various clamps what I thought of them.  Read the rest of this entry »

The forms are now assembled – the second one is clamped and drying.  Though now cliche, I would like to point out that if you are ever going to build something out of wood and glue, and you happen to be at the hardware store on a day when clamps are on sale, buy as many as you can afford and then double that number.  You can never have too many clamps.  There, I said it. Read the rest of this entry »